by Honor James
“Sounds good. I think for tonight we should just order in pizza delivery. I’m such a hot mess that I don’t think that I would be very good at all to help you cook, and we both know that I’m not much of one to sit back and let you do all the work.” She liked to help him in the kitchen, but right now, with as much as she was freaking out, she wouldn’t be any help at all.
“I’m not sold on the idea of letting an unknown near the house, sweetheart. Why don’t we thaw out the pizza dough we bought, chop up some veggies, and cut up some of the leftover meats we have. We can do our own pizzas, everyone can personalize them, toss them in the oven, and that’s dinner. A basic pizza sauce won’t take more than ten minutes to put together, and it can stew all on its own on the stovetop until we’re ready for it.”
“Okay.” She just hoped that in the process she didn’t chop her fingers off. “I think that maybe I should pull out the pizza dough and you should start to chop the veggies. I’m worried that if I did it I would chop a fingertip off.”
“I’ll get you making the sauce, too,” he said. Sticking a hand in her pocket, he dug out the keys and stuck them in her hand. “Let’s get inside, sweetheart. We have a project to get on. Then, while the sauce is doing its thing, we can curl up to watch a movie. I’d say have a nap, but we don’t want the sauce to burn.”
“Yes, that would be bad.” She walked into the house before him and pulled off the jacket, passing it off to him as she stepped into the living room. Standing slightly to the side and in front of the window, she looked out and said, “I can’t believe that there is someone out there that hates me so much.” She still couldn’t figure out who it was either, and that bothered her, a lot.
Aeron’s arms came around her, drawing her back against his chest. She realized he did that a lot, usually when she was worrying or fretting. It was a comfort to her. “We don’t know why he’s doing this, love. Hopefully we can ask, and find out, but you have to realize that we may very well never truly know.”
“I hope we can ask as well,” she said honestly. “I want to know. It might be a moot point, but I need to know why I’m hated that much,” she told him quietly. She was leaning back against him, her back to his front and his arms around her and holding her close. “So when you catch this asshole, ask him for me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he told her quietly. He gave her a squeeze, pressed a kiss to her neck, and let out a breath. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get busy so you don’t dwell. There’s no purpose to it, except for driving you absolutely batty. Which I don’t want happening. I rather like you as you are, not sure how I’ll feel if you go off your little rocker.”
He certainly knew how to get her to realize she needed to pull her own head out of her ass. She laughed and moved along with him. Headed to the kitchen, they were soon working on the meal for what seemed to be a small army by the sheer volume of food he insisted they get ready.
Tucking the last bowl back into the fridge, he looked her way. “Give that one last stir, turn the heat down to minimum, and we’ll go watch a movie. Did you want a water or a pop while we lounge before the TV?”
“No thanks. I just want to relax, and if I have a pop or anything else I will instead keep my focus on the drink, and I don’t want that. I want my focus to be on you and me on that couch. I want to see if we can’t get caught with our shirts off again.” Poor Yoshi had seen far more skin from both her and Aeron than he thought he would.
“That reminds me, I need to have words with Yoshi about sneaking around here when he knows we’re both in the house.” He pulled a bottle of water out, then shut the fridge door. Moving to her, he took her hand in his once she’d lowered the temperature on the pot and tugged her out of the kitchen. “So, what do you want to watch today? Action, comedy, romance?” he asked.
“How about we watch some sort of True Crime TV show? I think that they are having one of those forensics show marathons right now on one of the stations. Those shows fascinate me.” She knew how odd that was, but she loved those sorts of shows.
He shot her a look, but shrugged. “Lady’s choice,” he said. After passing her the remote, he sat in the armchair, tugging her down into his lap. “Watch whatever you want to, Piper. I honestly don’t care as long as I’ve got you here in my arms.”
She turned the TV on and then flipped the channels until she was on one of the shows and put the remote on the table, moving and curling up against Aeron after that. “You are right, this is just about perfect. Being here in your arms like this. I love it.”
One of his hands was on her hip, the other stroked over her hair slowly. It was soothing being able to just relax in his arms. “I’m glad you like this. I think we should do this at least once a day. Actually, any excuse to have you in my arms works for me.”
“Agreed.” She was relaxing, anything that had him touching her made her relax. “At least once a day. More than that would be much, much better though.” Anything to have him holding her.
Laughing softly, he hugged her close. “You only need to ask, sweetheart. Hell, once we get Yoshi out of the house I think we should spend a couple days naked. Lock everyone else out, and just have us-time together.”
“I like that plan, a lot.” Aeron did tend to come up with the best of all plans available. “I do like your friends, though, by the way. Yoshi is a very good guy. I like him a lot. He’s kind of like a big brother sort of guy. Ya know?”
“I’m glad you like them,” he said. “Especially since they all adore you, too,” he said softly. Pressing a kiss to her lips, he shifted position in the chair a little and hugged her closer. “You’ll meet the rest when they come home, which won’t be for a while yet. And we still have to figure out what the ever-loving hell we’re going to do for a business.”
“I thought that I had met them all?” she asked with confusion clear in her voice. “And that they were already back stateside since most of them are in the last months of their contracts?” Piper could have heard wrong, though, and it was possible she didn’t meet all of the men when they all seemed to show up out of nowhere here and there when he made his mother’s chili.
“Nope, not all of them,” he said with a laugh. “There’s still a couple you haven’t yet met. They’ve been off on special assignment, so they never made it back for the chili. You’ve met the majority of them, though. You may have even seen the three missing members at Michael’s wedding. They didn’t stay long, but then again, we didn’t stick around for much of that either.” Both the rehearsal dinner and the reception, they’d left a bit early.
“Well you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, mister man,” she teased. “Because you touch me, and I seem to want to get naked. I couldn’t help it. After we almost got caught in the coat closet and had to leave, so yeah.” She shrugged. “I like it, though. Just so you know.”
“Good to know,” he said. Shaking his head, he toyed with the fingers of her one hand. “That was a rather close call, wasn’t it?” he asked. Laughing softly when she nodded, he sighed. “Good times. Though I somehow doubt we’ll ever be invited back there.”
“I know. The look on the attendant’s face was utterly priceless. Then again, I’m sure that he doesn’t get a weapon pulled on him all that often either.” Her protective Aeron had his gun pulled and trained on the man before she had even realized that they had been caught.
“Yeah, well,” he said with a shrug. He made a face and laughed again. “Poor guy looked ready to pee his pants. Not that I blame him or anything. I’m amazed they didn’t ban us, actually, now that I think back on it.”
“I’m sure that they thought about it, but that would mean that they would lose the connections with my business and with the general, too.” She began to pet him, her hand moving up and down his chest. “No more talking. Just relaxing. Later we will go and check the pizza sauce, like in five minutes. Right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he teased. Tickling her ribs gently, he pressed a kiss to her cheek before settling back i
n the chair, his arms holding her close.
Chapter Ten
Her morning had started as every morning did, Aeron slowly waking her up in a sensual dance for the two of them alone. He’d left her to sleep in a little longer as he went to check in with the guys and get breakfast and coffee going.
When she finally pried herself out of her bed, there was a palpable tension through the entire house. She was almost positive it wasn’t just her. That it was everyone feeling the tension as the “deadline” came looming closer minute by minute.
At her table there were a lot of very large, heavily armed men. Every one of them stopped, said good morning with various lopsided grins, and then went back to eating their meals. Everything smelled heavenly. Aeron obviously had gone above and beyond for the morning meal. She even saw the waffles that were Yoshi’s trademark.
A coffee mug appeared before her. “Grab a seat, love,” Aeron said softly. “I threatened their worthless little lives if they didn’t ensure you had a full plate of food to eat. You tell me if I need to start shooting their worthless hides.”
“No, I have enough food for at least three full plates.” She took a sip of the coffee and grabbed a plate to begin to fill up on food. She didn’t get as much as she typically did, then again, with her stomach being in the knots that it was, she wasn’t surprised that she didn’t want to eat a great deal.
She took a seat beside Yoshi, not surprised when he reached out and gave her hand a light squeeze. She simply nodded her thanks to him at his support and waited for Aeron to join her and the others at the table. Once they were all seated, she asked, “So what is on the agenda today? I really don’t want to go in to work and yes, I know that I’ve said that many mornings, but today more than any other day. I don’t want to go in.” She didn’t want to leave her home. She was terrified, because today was the day. She could feel it. They all could feel it. Something was going to happen today, she was certain of it.
All eyes landed on her, then shifted to Aeron soon enough. “We’ll be sticking close to the house,” he told her. “I wouldn’t normally recommend it, but you’re too wound up for us to do anything else. I really don’t want you coming out of your skin for no reason. It’s way too hard on your body, and mentally even more stressful. So we’ll stick around here, do a few things, busy work mainly, and the guys will get out on watch to ensure we don’t have any unwanted visitors.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” she assured him with a nod. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and looked to the men. “And you are all going to be very careful as well.” Wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact. “Because I would be very upset with you if any of you got hurt on my account. Just saying.”
“Aww, she does care,” one of them said. He turned to his left and smacked the man there. “Told you she did.”
His friend, the one he’d hit, coughed as he rubbed his chest. “Right, you did. Don’t do that again, you asshole,” he muttered.
“Behave yourselves,” Aeron said in a sharp tone. “Or I’ll kick all your asses out of here, after you do the dishes, of course.”
Piper laughed at the way that the men acted. It was actually relatively nice, the way that they all behaved like a bunch of brothers. She adored these men, each and every single one of them. She did like them, all of them. “You are all my friends, of course I care if you are hurt or not. You would care if I were harmed as well. Admit it.”
“Well, ma’am, we’d be downright pissed if you were hurt,” one of them said. He was sitting beside Yoshi’s other side. “Connor, ma’am,” he said when she stared at him. He grinned at her and tipped an imaginary hat to her. “And Aeron wouldn’t be a very happy camper either,” he pointed out.
“Well I wouldn’t be a very happy camper either,” she admitted and placed her hand over Aeron’s. Giving his hand a light squeeze, she smiled and nodded. “We will get through this. All of us. We will get past this, and then later you boys can all stick around for a time if you want to.”
There were many smiles, and only one groan, from around the table. She knew where the groan came from, since all the other men were grinning at her. “Well, ma’am, that’s a right fine offer. We might have to take you up on it, if only to ensure that Cutter here is treating you right,” Connor said.
“Well I know that he will treat me better than right, because that is such a tame word. I know that he will be sheer perfection to me and for me, so there is no need to worry about that.” She knew that no matter what Cutter, or Aeron, as she called him, would always treat her better than right.
“Perfection, huh?” someone else said. She found the one, and he wiggled his eyebrows at her. “I think you need to explain that one, Ms. Davis. For the rest of us so that we can hope to achieve such levels at some point in our lives.”
“Bradley, I swear to God,” Aeron said before letting out a growl.
Piper just laughed. “Yes, he’s perfection. He’s humble, sweet, and holy hell is he ever so sexy. He does this thing with his tongue—” She was cut off from talking anymore when Aeron tugged her close and put his hand over her mouth. She started to giggle. She couldn’t help herself. God, she loved this man and loved being able to tease and play with him and his friends.
“No, no,” Bradley protested. He shot a glare at Aeron. “Come on, Cutter. Let the lady speak. It was just getting good, man. Everyone wants to hear this,” he said. Everyone around the table nodded, all five men with interest clearly written on their faces.
“Hell, no. It’s a trade secret,” he said. Moving his hand, Aeron pressed a kiss to her lips. “No giving away all my secrets, sweetheart.”
“I wasn’t going to tell them how you do it. That’s just for me and me alone to benefit from. They will have to learn their own tricks to get the women to come home with them. You though, you had me the moment we met, pretty much.” Which said a great deal. She had been drawn to him from the first moment they met.
“You definitely had my interest, pretty much from the moment I caught you gaping at my ass,” he said. Her cheeks warmed in a blush, and he let out a soft laugh. “You were bold, honest, and knew just what you wanted. I love that in a woman, in you. Now, eat your breakfast so we can leave these bozos to clean up while we figure out how to keep you occupied for the day.”
“Yeah? What do you have planned for us today?” She did, however, start to eat. She began to shovel the food into her mouth so that she could get out of the kitchen quickly with him along with her. “I love when you have plans in your head, you know that, right?”
“Somehow I don’t think what he has in mind is what she thinks he has in mind,” someone muttered. When she narrowed a look around the table, every man had an innocent look on his face, so she couldn’t be sure who’d said it.
“We’re going to do some yard work first. We still have a few hours before the deadline, so we’re not going to be cooped up waiting for it. When the time gets closer we’ll ensure we’re inside and secure,” Aeron told her.
“You are so bad,” she muttered darkly and shook her head. “And if I don’t want to do yard work? That is, after all, why I hire the Hill boy down the street,” she complained. She hated doing yard work, with a passion. She hired the kids in the neighborhood to mow her lawn, take up the leaves, and shovel the snow, so she didn’t have to. It gave them money and freed her already crunched time up.
“Then we’ll go into the bar so you can do the inventory you pawned off on your poor worker instead,” he told her. “We are getting out of this house for a few hours, Piper. End of story. You don’t like it, then stay put, but I need out of here, or I’ll go stir crazy waiting. I’d rather have something to keep me busy until we actually need to focus, than to be too on edge to be effective when the time comes.”
All the men got up from the table in an orchestrated move and began to clear everything but her dishes and Aeron’s coffee mug.
She watched him for several minutes and then sighed. “
Okay, fine. We will go in and do inventory.” She hated yard work that much. “I just wanted to stay inside for the day. I hate the waiting, the worry.” She felt as if she were going to puke every five seconds because her stomach was so tied up into knots. She was nervous and jumping at every single sound that was made, and hated herself for it. “Who will be going in with us?” she asked him as she watched the men cleaning up the remnants of their breakfast.
“We’ll be taking Bradley, and Timmons,” he said. Behind his head, she saw two men lift their hands and wave, identifying themselves to her. “They’ll be going ahead of us and then slip in after we’re already inside. We don’t want your watcher, should he be watching, to see them. And no one will.” Reaching out, he slid his arm around her and drew her closer to him. “I know this is hard, sweetheart. Trust me, doing something for a few hours is the best way to get through the wait.”
“I do trust you. That’s the only reason that I’m willing to go into work with you,” she admitted. “If I didn’t then I would dig my happy ass in right here and there wouldn’t be anything you could do to make me move. I’m rather stubborn. I haven’t exactly shown it yet, but trust me, I am.”
“Sweetheart, I already have the impression that you can be damn stubborn when you want. I am glad that you trust me, though. Now, finish up your coffee, get dressed for the day, and let’s get a move on. I’m sure the lads would be glad to bail out on cleanup sooner than later.”
“Good point. Okay.” She slipped her hand into his after passing her mug off to one of the men and walked up to the bedroom with him. She felt the heat of his gaze on her ass and said, “Eyes off my ass, mister.” She was smiling when she said that, though. “Which vehicle are we taking? My car or your SUV?” Because, dependent on the vehicle they took was what she was going to wear to maximize his gaze on her legs, her ass, and her teasing him as best she could.
